Part of Neck pain
Neck pain from computer work: what the desk rules are really based on
Warning signs, and when to get help
Can sitting at a computer cause neck pain?
Long spells at a screen are named among the common causes by the health services patients actually read. The NHS names bad posture at a desk for a long time among its causes of neck pain and asks readers not to keep the neck in one position for long stretches. healthdirect Australia goes with using a computer for long periods without a break. That is what two national health services say, not the result of a trial.
The numbers that circulate alongside that advice come mostly from one kind of study. A 2023 review pooled 30 studies of 18,395 college students and found higher odds of neck pain among students who reported sitting badly, bowing the head for long periods or using devices heavily through the day (Gao and colleagues, 2023). Twenty-four of those 30 studies looked at one moment in time and asked people to describe their own habits, which cannot tell you which came first. The review says as much about itself: most of what it pooled was cross-sectional, so it established no causal link. And these are students. The odds found in them are not a risk figure for you.
Whether the desk caused the pain matters much less than what the desk is doing to you now, because a position held for hours is a load whether or not it started the problem. The argument about posture itself is set out on forward head posture, and this page does not repeat it.
Where does the screen at eye level rule come from?
It comes from workplace and vision guidance, not from neck pain research.
OSHA, the US workplace regulator, publishes a computer workstations eTool, which is advisory guidance and not a standard. It asks for the monitor directly in front of you and at least 20 inches (about 50 cm) away, with 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 cm) given on the same page as the preferred viewing distance, the top line of the screen at or below eye level, the center of the monitor normally 15 to 20 degrees below horizontal eye level, and the downward viewing angle never greater than 60 degrees. Canada's CCOHS gives a close equivalent: about 15 degrees below the horizontal, or slightly lower, with an arm's length as a usable estimate of distance.
What those pages are arguing about is the part that gets stripped off when the figures travel. They sit in sections about seeing a screen comfortably and about not being forced into an awkward head position. The supporting figures on the CCOHS page are measurements of the eyes rather than of necks: the resting point of accommodation at about 80 cm (about 31.5 inches), the resting point of vergence at about 112 cm (about 44 inches). CCOHS splits the two jobs plainly: a poor angle leads to neck and shoulder discomfort, and the wrong distance contributes to eyestrain. Both halves of that are about keeping an office worker comfortable and preventing trouble, which is not the same question as what helps a neck that already hurts.
CCOHS then prints a caveat that rarely travels with the number. How far down the eyes naturally rest, it says, is not clear, and experimental findings have ranged from about 15 degrees to almost 30. An organization that publishes a figure and then tells you the experiments behind it run from 15 degrees to nearly double that is being straight with you. Take that over a confident number on a product page.
Set all of that beside the guideline. The 2017 JOSPT neck pain guideline, the clinical practice guideline physical therapists (physiotherapists) work from, does not contain the words workstation, desk or computer at all. Ergonomics appears only inside its evidence tables, and one of those entries is a trial in which adding job stress education to ergonomic measures brought no extra benefit for chronic neck pain with pain radiating into the arm. So no monitor height, viewing distance or chair setting is supported by a neck pain trial, and nobody should present one to you as treatment.
Does changing your desk fix neck pain?
The two reviews that tested this cannot answer it for you, in either direction, and the reason is who they enrolled.
The Cochrane review of ergonomic interventions pooled 15 randomized trials in 2,165 office workers. Workstation adjustment, in one study, and sit-stand desks, in another, made no difference to upper limb pain or discomfort compared with no intervention. The one physical change that came out ahead was an arm support used with an alternative computer mouse, which lowered new neck and shoulder disorders on moderate-quality evidence, risk ratio 0.52, 95% confidence interval 0.27 to 0.99 (Hoe and colleagues, 2018). The review itself does not take that number at face value. It calls the evidence for arm supports and alternative mouse designs inconsistent, because an arm support with an ordinary mouse changed nothing, and an alternative mouse on its own changed nothing, so only the pair of them together moved the result.
One line in the review's methods decides what the whole thing can be used for: it only included studies where fewer than a quarter of workers had musculoskeletal symptoms to begin with, so what it was really asking is whether equipment keeps healthy workers healthy.
The newer Cochrane review of work breaks is in the same position. Its nine trials, with 626 workers, enrolled people who were free of musculoskeletal complaints, every comparison was rated very low certainty, and extra breaks may have made little or no difference to the number of workers who went on to develop neck pain, on one study of 147 people (Luger and colleagues, 2025).
So if you already have neck pain, neither review is about you, and stretching their findings to cover you would be wrong whichever way you stretched them. Nobody has established that changing your desk helps you now, and nobody has established that it does not.
One review did enroll people who already had neck pain. Eight randomized trials in office workers with chronic neck pain, all at high risk of bias and rated low certainty overall, found that strengthening the neck, shoulder and shoulder blade muscles reduced pain and disability (Jones and colleagues, 2024). That is the honest shape of the answer: the desk change buys you a more comfortable day, and the strength work is the part that has been shown to change the pain. The staged neck pain program carries the stages and the starting doses, and your physio will adjust this. After neck surgery or a broken bone in the neck, check with your surgeon or physio before you start.
How often should you get up from the desk?
There is no established interval, and the two places you would expect to find one say so themselves.
The Health and Safety Executive, the UK regulator, states that there is no legal guidance on how long or how often screen-work breaks should be, and that it depends on the work. It then offers an example rather than a rule: short breaks taken often beat long ones taken rarely, with 5 to 10 minutes every hour given as better than 20 minutes every 2 hours. It also asks that a break let you get up and move, or at least change posture, rather than simply stop typing.
The Cochrane review above found something more pointed. Not one of its nine included trials investigated how long a break should last, so the intervals in circulation, timer apps included, do not come from a study that compared them (Luger and colleagues, 2025).
Not much is at stake in picking the wrong number, so tie a break to something that already happens in your day, and move it earlier if your neck is sore sooner. Desk stretches and movement breaks carries the routine and what the trials on active breaks did find, and neck and back pain when working from home covers the rest of the working day.
Why does your neck hurt when you are sitting at your desk?
Because of the holding, more than the shape. Any position becomes work once you keep it long enough, and the muscles at the back of the neck are working the whole time your head is held still over a screen. The pattern people describe fits that: fine in the first hour, sore by mid-afternoon, easier within minutes of standing up, and back soon after they sit down again.
It is also why a perfect setup disappoints people. A good desk lowers what a position costs you per hour. It does not remove the cost, and it cannot rebuild the tolerance for staying still, which the neck pain program describes as the slowest thing to come back and treats as the job of the strength and endurance work.
So look for what your setup is forcing on you rather than for the ideal. Leaning in to a screen that is too far away or too small, turning your head toward a second monitor used all day, reaching past the keyboard for a mouse, and having nowhere to rest your forearms are all forced positions, and each of them is free to change. Our work from home ergonomics guide walks through the whole setup with household objects, and standing desks covers what swapping to standing does and does not do.
One habit is worth more than the furniture. Getting out of the position regularly beats hunting for the perfect one, and it is the one thing here you can start today without buying anything.
What this page cannot tell you
Four things, because the confident versions of all four are everywhere.
No pillow height, monitor height, viewing distance, chair setting or break interval has been shown in a neck pain trial to treat neck pain. The figures that exist come from workplace and vision guidance and are justified on comfort and eyesight. The two Cochrane reviews that tested desk changes and work breaks studied prevention in people who did not have neck pain. And the guideline physical therapists use for neck pain does not mention desks at all.
What is left after all of that is still worth doing, and it is cheap: remove what forces an awkward position, change position often, and train the neck and shoulder blade muscles for endurance. The other eight hours are the same question in a different position, and they are covered on pillows and sleeping position.
When it is not a desk problem
Some neck pain at a desk is not about the desk, and no amount of adjusting will touch it. Start somewhere else entirely if yours began with an accident, a fall or a blow to the head: a few of those situations need an ambulance rather than an appointment, and when neck pain is serious carries every one of those routes. The threshold drops a long way for some readers: if you are 65 or older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time, neck pain after even a minor car accident or fall means getting the neck checked the same day, and the warning list below gives that line in full. Two patterns in particular are worth catching early.
Pain, pins and needles, numbness or weakness traveling down one arm can mean an irritated nerve in the neck, and that needs an assessment rather than a new chair. The cervical radiculopathy program is written for it. The chin tuck and wall angel work in the main program still has a place afterward, but the order of events changes, so get the arm looked at first.
Pain that is there all the time, that does not ease when you stop work and rest, or that is worse at night, is the other one. That pattern does not behave like a loaded position, and it belongs with your doctor within a few days rather than with a monitor stand. With a history of cancer, or weight loss you cannot explain, it moves to the same day.
When neck pain is serious sets out every one of these routes with how fast each needs acting on, and the list at the foot of this page gives the warning signs in urgency order. See a physio or doctor anyway if your neck has not settled after a few weeks, if it keeps returning, or if it is interfering with your work or your sleep, which is what the NHS advises.
One sign in the list below appears twice, at two different speeds. Pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse, is a same-day matter if you have had cancer at any time or have lost weight without trying, and otherwise needs your doctor within a few days. If you cannot tell which of those you have, treat it as the more urgent one.
Related exercise programs
Warning signs
Get emergency help now
- Emergency: any sign of a stroke, even if it goes away. That means a face that droops on one side, an arm you cannot lift or keep up, slurred or muddled speech, weakness or numbness on one side of your body or face, sudden blurred vision, double vision or loss of sight, trouble swallowing, sudden dizziness with unsteadiness or falling over, a sudden severe headache, or a sudden fall where your legs give way but you do not black out (a drop attack). Call emergency services straight away. With neck pain, these can rarely come from a tear in an artery in the neck.
- Emergency: a sudden, severe headache or neck pain that feels new and unlike anything you have had before. Call emergency services straight away.
- Emergency: a new headache, or new pain on one side of your face, jaw or neck, with a drooping eyelid or a smaller pupil on the same side, or with a new pulsing or whooshing sound in one ear that keeps time with your heartbeat. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. This can be a tear in an artery in the neck (cervical artery dissection), which can lead to a stroke.
- Emergency: a new headache or neck pain, or both, that does not feel like ordinary neck pain. If this is your first bout, judge it by how it behaves rather than by how it compares. Either of the next two is enough on its own. One, it came on suddenly, in a single moment, even if it is not severe and even if it has eased since. Sudden onset counts on its own. Two, nothing you do changes it much: no position or rest makes a real difference, and after the first day or two it has not started to settle. It counts even if you have none of the other emergency signs above, and it matters more if it started after a neck injury or strain, even a minor one, a bout of heavy coughing, or having your neck manipulated. Go to an emergency department straight away, or call emergency services if you cannot get there safely, and do not drive yourself. Do not start these exercises, and do not have any hands-on treatment to your neck, until your neck has been checked. A tear in an artery in the neck can start as pain alone, often on one side, with nothing else to find. If it came on gradually rather than in a single moment, and you can find a position that eases it, follow the same day warning sign for this below instead. Pain that started in one moment stays with this emergency line even if a position now eases it.
- Emergency: a stiff neck with a fever, a severe headache that is getting worse, pain when you look at bright lights, confusion, or a rash that does not fade when you press a glass on it. Call emergency services. These can be signs of meningitis.
- Emergency: new problems walking, for example your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak or you have become unsteady on your feet, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that suddenly become clumsy, for example you can no longer do up buttons. Call emergency services straight away. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- Emergency: neck, jaw or arm pain that comes with chest pain, shortness of breath, sweating or feeling sick. Call emergency services.
- Emergency: your arm, hand or fingers turn cold, pale, blue or gray compared with the other side. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away, and do not drive yourself. The blood supply to the arm may be blocked.
- Emergency: in the days or the weeks after an operation on the front of your neck, new swelling in your neck, trouble breathing, breathing that has turned noisy or whistling, a feeling that you can only breathe while sitting up, or trouble swallowing that is getting worse, with or without a fever. Call emergency services straight away. Do not phone the ward or your surgeon first and wait for someone to call back, do not drive and do not let anyone drive you in, and sit upright rather than lying down while you wait. Bleeding or swelling in front of the spine can narrow the airway in the first hours and the first day after this operation, swelling of the throat tissues can do it in the first three days, and an infection behind the throat can do it after that, which is why this line does not stop at the end of the first week (Debkowska and colleagues, 2019).
- Emergency: neck pain with a fever, or you feel hot, shivery or very unwell, and you also have new weakness, numbness or tingling in one or both arms or legs, new trouble walking, or new trouble with your bladder or bowels. Call emergency services or go to an emergency department straight away. This can be an infection pressing on the spinal cord or nerves in the neck (spinal epidural abscess), which needs emergency treatment.
- Emergency: you have had cancer, now or in the past, and your back or neck pain feels like a tight band around your body, or you have new or worsening pain spreading down an arm or leg, weakness, numbness, pins and needles or a loss of feeling in your arms or legs, trouble walking, or trouble controlling your bladder or bowels. Those symptoms count on their own, with or without back or neck pain. Call your cancer team's emergency number straight away, or go to an emergency department if you do not have one or cannot get through, and do not drive yourself. This can be cancer pressing on the spinal cord (metastatic spinal cord compression), which needs treatment straight away.
Get help now, day or night
- You are pregnant or had a baby in the last few weeks and have a severe headache that does not go away with simple painkillers, problems with your vision such as blurring or flashing lights, pain just below your ribs, vomiting, heartburn that does not go away with heartburn medicines, sudden swelling of your face, hands or feet, or you feel very unwell. Contact your maternity unit straight away, or get urgent medical help if you cannot reach them. These can be signs of pre-eclampsia, which can develop in the days or weeks after the birth and needs checking immediately. The same applies to a headache after an epidural or spinal anesthetic that gets worse when you sit or stand up and eases when you lie down. Call emergency services if you have a fit (seizure) or a headache that came on suddenly and is very severe. Call emergency services too if you have a headache with a stiff neck and either a high temperature or bright light hurting your eyes, as this can be meningitis.
- Same day: you have rheumatoid arthritis and get new neck pain, or a new headache at the back of your head that keeps coming back. If it comes with tingling or numbness in your hands or arms, get medical advice the same day. If you also feel unsteady on your feet or your legs feel stiff, heavy or weak, call emergency services straight away. Without any of those, tell your doctor or rheumatology team within a few days, and leave out any neck exercises until you have been checked.
Get help today
- Same day: a new headache or neck pain, or both, that does not feel like ordinary neck pain, that came on gradually rather than in a single moment, that started after a neck injury or strain, even a minor one, a bout of heavy coughing, or having your neck manipulated, but that does ease when you change position or rest. Get checked the same day before you start these exercises or have any hands-on treatment to your neck. If nothing you do changes it much any more, or it has not started to settle after a day or two, or it did come on in a single moment, follow the emergency warning sign for this above.
- Same day: you have had an operation on your neck for a squeezed nerve or for pressure on the spinal cord, and the tingling, numbness or arm pain has come back after settling, or new weakness has appeared in a hand or arm. Get advice from the team that operated the same day. What a returning symptom means after that operation depends on what was done and on what your scan showed, so it is their question rather than a physio's. If you also have new trouble walking, new trouble controlling your bladder or bowels, or hands that have suddenly become clumsy, use the emergency line above instead and call emergency services straight away.
- Same day: dizziness, a spinning feeling or feeling sick that comes on when you turn or tip your head, without any of the emergency signs above. Stop the exercises and get medical advice the same day. If you faint, it does not settle within a few minutes of sitting still, or you cannot stand or walk steadily, call emergency services.
- Same day: hands that have slowly become clumsy, for example trouble doing up buttons or dropping things, or numbness in both hands. Get medical advice the same day. These can be signs of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck (cervical myelopathy). If the clumsiness or numbness gets worse quickly, call emergency services straight away.
- Same day: pain or tingling in both arms at the same time, rather than in one. Get medical advice the same day. This can also be a sign of pressure on the spinal cord in the neck.
- Same day: an electric shock feeling runs down your back or into your arms or legs as your head bends forward. Stop and get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: an arm or hand that is getting weaker. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: pins and needles in an arm together with neck or arm pain, or an arm that feels heavy or weak, and nobody has checked it yet. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: a calf or thigh that is newly swollen or getting more swollen, warm, tender, red or darker than usual, has swollen veins that are sore to touch, or has a throbbing or cramping pain that does not fit your injury or condition, or that feels different from normal muscle soreness after exercise. This can be a sign of a blood clot (deep vein thrombosis), especially after surgery, an injury, time in a cast or boot, a long trip or a spell of being much less mobile than usual. Get medical advice the same day. If you are also short of breath or have chest pain, call emergency services.
- Same day: severe neck or arm pain that comes on suddenly or is getting worse quickly, without any of the emergency signs above. Get medical advice the same day.
- Same day: neck pain with a fever or chills, or you feel generally unwell. Get medical advice the same day, and go to an emergency department if you feel very unwell.
- Same day: new neck pain and you have had cancer, now or in the past, or you have lost weight without trying. Get medical advice the same day and mention it. If you are being treated for cancer now, contact your cancer team the same day.
- Same day: neck pain after a car accident or a fall, even a minor one, if you are 65 or older, have low bone density (osteoporosis) or have taken steroid tablets for a long time. Get your neck checked by a doctor the same day, for example at an emergency department, before you start these exercises. At 65 or older, doctors usually want an X-ray or scan of the neck after an accident.
- Same day: pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse. If you have had cancer, now or in the past, or you have lost weight without trying, get medical advice the same day.
Book an appointment
- Within a few days: pain that is there all the time and does not ease with rest or changing position, or pain at night that keeps getting worse. See your doctor within a few days.
Common questions
How do you relieve neck pain from computer work?
Take the forced position away first, then do the work that changes the pain. Forced means anything your setup makes you do rather than choose: leaning in to read a screen that is too far or too small, turning your head toward a second monitor you use all day, reaching for a mouse out past the keyboard, or holding your shoulders up because your forearms have nothing to rest on. All four are worth fixing on the first morning and none of them costs anything. The work from home ergonomics guide sets out how. Then change position often, since the holding is the part that hurts, and desk stretches and movement breaks gives a routine to hang that on. The part with real trial support in people who already have neck pain is strengthening the neck, shoulder and shoulder blade muscles, which is what the staged neck pain program builds toward (Jones and colleagues, 2024). Heat or cold and a simple painkiller are reasonable for comfort on a bad day, and a pharmacist can say which suits you. What nobody can give you is a setting that treats the pain, because no neck pain trial has established one.
What is the best office chair for neck pain?
There is no best chair, and no chair has been shown to treat neck pain. The Cochrane review of ergonomic changes in office workers tested workstation adjustment and sit-stand desks against doing nothing and found no effect on upper limb pain or discomfort, and those were trials in workers who were largely free of symptoms at the start, so they were asking whether equipment prevents trouble rather than whether it treats yours (Hoe and colleagues, 2018). What a chair can reasonably do is stop forcing you into a position: let your feet rest flat, let you sit far enough back that the backrest takes some of your weight, and let your forearms reach the desk so your shoulders are not holding themselves up for eight hours. A dining chair with a cushion and a box under the feet manages that. Spend the budget somewhere else. The one physical change that came out ahead in that review was not a chair, and the money does more if it goes on the strength work. If you are in the UK and work at a screen for your employer, you can ask for a workstation assessment, which the Health and Safety Executive describes as the employer's duty.
Is there a monitor height that prevents neck pain?
No height has been shown to prevent or treat neck pain, and the numbers in circulation come from somewhere else. OSHA's computer workstations guidance, which is advisory material rather than a standard, puts the top of the screen at or slightly below eye level and the center normally 15 to 20 degrees below horizontal eye level, at least 20 inches (about 50 cm) away, with 20 to 40 inches (50 to 100 cm) given on the same page as the preferred viewing distance, and the downward viewing angle never greater than 60 degrees. Canada's CCOHS suggests about 15 degrees or a little lower and says an arm's length is usually a good estimate of distance. Both of those sit in sections about seeing the screen comfortably and avoiding awkward postures, and CCOHS adds the caveat almost nobody passes on: how far down the eyes naturally settle is not clear, and experiments have put it anywhere from about 15 degrees to almost 30. Use the figures as a starting point, then move the screen until you can read it without leaning in or tipping your head, which is the test those numbers were trying to approximate in the first place.
Can a computer mouse cause neck pain?
A mouse can certainly make a day harder, usually through where it sits rather than what it is. If it lives out beyond the keyboard or off to the side, you reach for it, and reaching holds the shoulder and the side of the neck working for hours at a time. Bring it in next to the keyboard, keep your elbow near your side, and give the forearm somewhere to rest. There is one more reason to look at this corner of the desk: in the Cochrane review of ergonomic interventions, the only physical change that came out ahead was an arm support used together with an alternative computer mouse, which lowered the rate of new neck or shoulder disorders on moderate-quality evidence, with a risk ratio of 0.52 and a confidence interval running from 0.27 to 0.99 (Hoe and colleagues, 2018). The review still calls the evidence here inconsistent, because neither the arm support nor the different mouse changed anything on its own. Read that for what it is: a prevention finding in workers who did not have neck pain at the start, not a treatment for someone whose neck hurts today. It is still the cheapest thing on this page worth trying.
References
- Occupational Safety and Health Administration. Computer workstations eTool: monitors. https://www.osha.gov/etools/computer-workstations/components/monitors
- Canadian Centre for Occupational Health and Safety. Office ergonomics: monitor positioning. https://www.ccohs.ca/oshanswers/ergonomics/office/monitor_positioning.html
- Health and Safety Executive. Working safely with display screen equipment: work routine and breaks. https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/work-routine.htm
- Health and Safety Executive. Working safely with display screen equipment: DSE workstation assessment. https://www.hse.gov.uk/msd/dse/assessment.htm
- Hoe VCW, Urquhart DM, Kelsall HL, Zamri EN, Sim MR. Ergonomic interventions for preventing work-related musculoskeletal disorders of the upper limb and neck among office workers. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2018;(10):CD008570. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD008570.pub3
- Luger T, Ferenchak SA, Rieger MA, Steinhilber B. Work-break interventions for preventing musculoskeletal symptoms and disorders in healthy workers. Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews. 2025;(10):CD012886. https://doi.org/10.1002/14651858.CD012886.pub3
- Jones LB, Jadhakhan F, Falla D. The influence of exercise on pain, disability and quality of life in office workers with chronic neck pain: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Applied Ergonomics. 2024;117:104216. doi:10.1016/j.apergo.2023.104216. 8 randomized trials, all at high risk of bias, overall certainty low. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/38219373/
- Blanpied PR, Gross AR, Elliott JM, et al. Neck pain: revision 2017. Clinical practice guidelines linked to the International Classification of Functioning, Disability and Health from the Orthopaedic Section of the American Physical Therapy Association. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2017;47(7):A1-A83. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2017.0302
- Gao Y, Chen Z, Chen S, Wang S, Lin J. Risk factors for neck pain in college students: a systematic review and meta-analysis. BMC Public Health. 2023;23(1):1502. doi:10.1186/s12889-023-16212-7. 30 studies, 18,395 participants, mostly cross-sectional with self-reported exposures. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37553622/
- NHS. Neck pain. Page last reviewed 27 April 2023. https://www.nhs.uk/symptoms/neck-pain-and-stiff-neck/
- healthdirect Australia. Neck pain. https://www.healthdirect.gov.au/neck-pain
- NHS. Symptoms of a stroke. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/stroke/symptoms/
- NHS. Cervical spondylosis. https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/cervical-spondylosis/
- NHS. Deep vein thrombosis (DVT). https://www.nhs.uk/conditions/deep-vein-thrombosis-dvt/
- Finucane LM, Downie A, Mercer C, et al. International framework for red flags for potential serious spinal pathologies. Journal of Orthopaedic and Sports Physical Therapy. 2020;50(7):350-372. https://doi.org/10.2519/jospt.2020.9971
Written and checked by the PocketPhysio editorial team. Last updated 2026-11-06.
This page is general education, not a diagnosis or a personal treatment plan. See a physiotherapist or doctor for advice about your own situation.